I would say that this movie is probably one of the best Vietnam War movies I've ever seen. Unlike most of the Vietnam War movies, which focus on depicting war scenes, this film only accounts for about a tenth of the actual war scenes, most of which are about the protagonist Ron Kovic after the Vietnam War.
Young Ron Kovic joined the U.S. Marine Corps right after graduating high school and immediately fought in the Vietnam War. In the war, he accidentally killed Vietnamese civilians and his comrades in arms, and he was also injured in the war, his lower limbs were paralyzed, and he even lost his genitals. From a field hospital to his home to Mexico, Ron Kovic went from a young man who believed that he would sacrifice for his country and believe that Vietnam would be victorious, to a poor man who was helpless and lost, drinking for pleasure. The dream of shooting Vietnamese civilians and manslaughtering comrades-in-arms has always haunted him. In the end, he repented to the parents and wife of the manslaughtered comrades-in-arms. And a few years later, Ron Kovic, who has become an anti-war representative, will give his own speech as his mother told him when he was a child and dreamed that he would speak to the nation on TV...
Tom Cruise's performance here is flawless, even to the point of I think it's the best acting of his films I've seen. And the most brilliant part of it is the confused period from the field hospital to Mexico. One of the scenes: After Ron returned home with a disability, Ron's father turned his back and choked up and said to Ron to take you to see the new things in the room... And it is precisely this part of the excitement that makes the whole movie take Give people a deeper level of thinking about the Vietnam War, about the war, about human nature.
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